Resting the shovel on his shoulder, the Paratrooper tipped up his patrol cap up to wipe away the grime and sweat from his brow as the unseasonably warm sun blazed overhead. The breeze toyed with the cloud of dust erupting from the concrete saw on the other side of the slab, driving it towards him. He could taste the gritty white dust on his tongue. With the dust came a high-intensity buzz as the saw chewed into the hardened surface.
As the orange, North Carolina soil poured from the bucket loader onto the sand grid at his feet, he began to spread the dirt around, filling the black tubes that would provide stability for the notional crater repair on a simulated flight landing strip.
For the past three weeks, horizontal construction engineers from throughout Fort Bragg observed and demonstrated airfield damage repair (ADR) techniques on Sicily Drop Zone under the instruction of the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in support of potential future Global Response Force operations.
"We're training them, not only on the use of new equipment sets, but also some new materials," said Dr. John Rushing, a research civil engineer at ERDC in Vicksburg, Miss. "Some of the solutions that currently are in the inventory are outdated."
Rushing, sporting a red t-shirt with the Corps Castle, expressed excitement at the opportunity to see ERDC's solutions worked by the stakeholders, the military engineers.
"We're taking timing data, personnel data, and material data to see if we can increase the operational efficiency for this mission by using, perhaps, some optimized [Light Airfield Repair Packages]."
Units of the 82nd Airborne Division train regularly for contingency response missions, and one key task is airfield seizure. Once the responding force parachutes in, one of their first priorities is opening the airfield to land aircraft bearing additional combat power. The LARP is how the task force accomplishes immediate repairs to the runway.
"We've brought a lot of material out here to train on new methods and things that they'll see coming in the future … for their airborne ADR mission," said Rushing.
For decades, a major workhorse for the Air Force's strategic projection of land power was the longstanding C-130 Hercules. However, newer and larger aircraft like the C17 Globemaster III, necessitates an update to legacy ADR systems.
Paratroopers prepared to parachute into an enemy-held area with only what they can carry need the best possible systems to facilitate the arrival of friendly forces.
"Being able to start bringing in air lands as quickly as possible onto an airfield is very, very important," said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Dustin Nistle, the 37th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Abn. Div. S3 construction technician. "Obviously, you're getting all your central supplies down to your Paratroopers and all the additional equipment that you're going to need to expand lodgment in that area."
Due to their role as the forcible entry component of the Global Response Force (GRF), the 82nd Abn. Div., and their engineer assets in particular, are stakeholders in the development of an optimum Light Airfield Repair Package and ADR kits.
"We have 127th BEB, the 37th BEB and the 307th BEB out here from Division training on this new airfield damage repair kit," said Nistle. "We also have some folks from 20th Engineer Brigade."
The 20th Eng. Bde. is the Army's largest engineer brigade, headquartered on Fort Bragg, provides critical mobility and counter-mobility assets for contingency response.
The mission of the GRF is to put a battalion-size task force with enablers anywhere in the world in only 18 hours, either for entry into an enemy-held theater or in support of humanitarian missions. It consists of a variety of organizations, some airborne and some not, to allow a combatant commander to tailor the task force based on intelligence analysis of the objective.
Considering the size of typical construction equipment, delivery by heavy drop may not be feasible and finding space on a limited number of aircraft may be a bridge too far. The task for the community of interest is to find smaller, modular platforms that can do the job quickly. During training, the engineers put the M400 skid steer loader through the paces.
"Skid steers are nice because you have a single construction platform with different attachments," said Rushing. "When one unit goes down, you come in with another unit … or you can use one piece of equipment that can perform several functions."
At least one 82nd Abn. Div. Paratrooper agrees.
"The skid steers are great; they're easy to maneuver around, and you can get multiple skid steers working on one crater," said Nistle. "Basically it's going to lessen our footprint on the aircraft and lesson our platform sizes, so we can fit more troops and bullets and whatnot."
Each skid steer attachment plays a role throughout each step of the crater repair. The engineers start by saw cutting around the damaged concrete. The skid steer attachment requires no water source to operate, which is a selling point if required for use in an austere environment. The breaking attachment, a hydraulic hammer, then comes in to fracture the large pieces of concrete into more manageable pieces. The backhoe attachment aids in removing that large debris from the hole, ensuring there is no shifting of materials that can cause instability within the repair.
The next task is to place native soil back into the hole with the bucket attachment. Using shovels, the engineers disperse the soil evenly into the ADR kit's plastic sand grids, which increase the bearing capacity of the repair. They compact the soil as they add layers until finally, a vibratory roller attachment on the skid steer provides enough compaction to support aircraft loads. On top of the crater, the engineers place matting to prevent debris from getting into aircraft engines.
"We've redesigned a fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) matting system," said Rushing. "It's upgraded and has better strength. It's a more rigid, resilient matting system and also has new anchoring bushings."
One assembly of the FRP can repair a 28-foot crater and allows up to 100 landings by aircraft like the C-17 Globemaster III.
The ADR kit includes two boxes: one with the consumable materials, such as the anchoring systems and grouts, and the other with tools like hydraulic power packs, compressors, drills, and generators.
For ERDC, the opportunity to present these kits and exercise modular equipment options on an actual flight landing strip with the Soldiers has been an invaluable one.
"The interactions and feedback that we've received has been great," said Rushing "They have they been very eager to see these new things. They quickly caught on to the concepts that we're trying to teach them, and they've done an outstanding job of providing the information that we need."
Nistle cited the strategic importance for training on the new ADR systems, stating that ERDC had invested a considerable amount of time and collected a significant amount of data to ensure the systems' usefulness to the Army and Air Force.
Rushing appealed to the needs of the individual Servicemembers for ERDC's ADR developments and training.
"We want to be able to look back and say, 'What we did really made a difference, that we put it in the Soldier's hands and he was able to use it and do his job better, … kept him safer.'"
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